Lakers, Blazers draw blanks in Africa Club Championship

Lakers preserved their unbeaten run against local rivals Blazers this season as they played to a barren draw in the ongoing Africa Cup for Club Hockey Champions at the National Hockey Stadium in Blantyre, Malawi Sunday.

Lakers, who are making their second appearance in the event, had beaten nine-time African champions Blazers 1-0 away in Kisumu during the Kenya Hockey Union women's Premier League in May.

Their first meeting in the continental event ended in a 1-1 draw at the City Park Hockey Stadium when Kenya hosted the event in February this year.

Both sides are on four points after winning their respective opening matches on Saturday in the event that is being played in a round-robin format.

Blazers thrashed Genetrix Hockey Club of Malawi 13-1, while Lakers humiliated hosts Scorpions 12-0.

Lakers will take on Capital Braves of Malawi, while Blazers will take on Scorpions also from Malawi in their third matches of the nine-day event Monday.

Lakers team manager John Paul decried the missed chances, but was quick to note they have to win the remaining matches to be on the safe side.

"A draw is not good. I think going forward is to ensure we score more goals as I foresee a situation where it will go down to goal difference. Tomorrow, we come up against a side Delta Queens from Nigeria beat 17-0 and so we have to score more goals. We will not underrate them, in fact we are going full throttle to ensure we win with maximum goals," said Paul in a phone interview with Nation Sport on Sunday night.

"Champions Ghana Revenue Authority from Ghana and Delta Queens are some of the tough teams that we are yet to play and so we are going to strategize and see how best to approach them. But far so far, so good," he added.

Blazers coach Rose Mbulo said the result was fair considering the intensity of the match.

"We know each other well and every team can tell the move the other team is about to make and that made it difficult for either side to score, but we are happy with the result. We just want to keep on working on ourselves to ensure we have good results at the end of the round-robin matches," said Mbulo.

Meanwhile, Kenya's sole representative in the men's event, Western Jaguars, who had a rest day on Sunday after beating Scorpions 9-0 on Saturday, will take on Uganda's Kampala Capital City Authority in their second match on Monday.

Jaguars team manager Peter Okova said the lads are rejuvenated and remained optimistic of a good show.

"The players have come around after a long road trip from Kenya. On Saturday, most of the players were fatigued but the rest today has really done us well and we look forward to tomorrow's match," said Okova.